A few tricks to keep us healthy

HEALTH

In this series of articles every Friday I will explain your body to you, and how you can use this understanding to improve your health, and hopefully live a longer and more enjoyable life. You will learn how your body works, and how you can avoid damage to it. You will also learn how we doctors examine you and treat illnesses. And most importantly, you will learn how you can change your lifestyle to stay healthy. The articles will help you to know more about your body, about health and disease. I will answer your questions in a column every Thursday. Send your questions to: [email protected]

HEART and cardiovascular disease are one of the leading causes of death in Papua New Guinea, but it doesn’t have to be.
There are many well-known ways to keep your heart healthy, including being physically active and quitting smoking. Maintaining a healthy weight and controlling blood pressure, sugar and cholesterol levels are also keys to keeping your pump in great shape.

But researchers are continually looking for additional ways to help people cut back on their risk factors for heart disease and keep their hearts healthy. Here are a few things to know about heart health, gleaned from the latest research.
As described in the column last week, make time for breakfast – enjoying a healthy, hearty breakfast may be a simple strategy to start a good day and to avoid clogged arteries,

Avoid ‘yo-yo’ dieting.
Yo-yo dieting can be hazardous to ones waistline, but it may also be hard on our hearts, especially in women after they go through menopause.
Researchers found that women ages 55 and older who had a “normal” body mass index (BMI) weight, but had weight fluctuations of more than 10 lbs. (4.5 kilograms) over the course of a decade, may have an increased risk of developing heart problems, compared with women who had smaller weight swings during the same period.
The researchers suggest that maintaining a stable, healthy weight is better for women’s hearts than having a fluctuating normal weight caused by yo-yo dieting. It’s not clear whether losing weight and then regaining it might have similar effects on younger women or men’s hearts.

Keep a lid on hostility
Hostility can have negative effects on our hearts. Several studies have found that higher levels of cynical hostility – or a cynical attitude along with a general mistrust of other people — is linked with an increased risk for heart disease, while people filled with optimism have a lower risk for heart disease.

Hostile feelings might also hurt the heart by activating the fight-or-flight response, which boosts stress hormone levels. The study also found that people who were more hostile were more likely to have other heart risk factors, such as high blood pressure, obesity and high cholesterol, compared with those who were less hostile.

Be smart about drinking
Moderate drinking may be linked to a lower risk of some, but not all, heart conditions.
Men and women who drink moderate amounts of alcohol are less likely to be diagnosed with chest pain (angina), stroke, heart failure and peripheral artery disease (a reduction in blood flow to the legs and arms) than people who never drank, researchers found.
Moderate drinking is considered as no more than 14 “units” of alcohol a week. One unit of alcohol is defined as 8 grams of pure alcohol, according to the U.K.’s National Health Services. A pint of beer is equal to 3 units of alcohol, while a glass of wine is about 2 units. This means, you should NOT have more than a total of 5 beers a week !

Heavy drinking is linked to an increased risk of heart conditions, including cardiac arrest, stroke, heart failure and peripheral artery disease.
People who never drink should not take up the habit to prevent these heart problems.
There are safer ways to improve heart health, such as exercising and quitting smoking, that don’t come with the risks of alcohol.

Walking speed may help predict heart risks
How fast a person walks could hold clues to his or her risk of dying from heart disease.
Middle-aged people who said they were slow walkers were about twice as likely to die from heart disease during a six-year period as people who said they were brisk walkers.
Researchers suspect that a low level of fitness could explain why slow walkers had an increased risk of dying from heart disease.
People were good at gauging how quickly they walked: Their reported walking speed was found to be strongly linked with their actual fitness level, which was measured by an exercise test.

Get a grip on your finances
Money problems might weigh heavily on people’s minds, but there’s another part of the body that could also feel the strain of financial pressures: the heart.
Financial stress can take a toll on our heart.
Researchers found that having a history of struggling to make ends meet was linked to a twofold increase in heart attack risk.

Money troubles were not the only stressors tied to heart troubles. Coping with the death of a loved one or a life-threatening illness could also increase our chances of a heart attack, the researchers found.
Scientists don’t know how stressful life events contribute to heart attack, but increased levels of inflammation and cortisol (a stress hormone) might play a part.

Vaping may be risky for the heart
Electronic cigarettes are often billed as a better option for the lungs, but they are not and they are not safe for the heart.
Researchers found that people who used e-cigarettes for at least one year had higher levels of the hormone adrenaline in their hearts and signs of oxidative stress in their bodies than people who never tried e-cigarettes.
Higher levels of adrenaline can raise your blood pressure and heart rate, and oxidative stress can dampen the body’s ability to fend off free radicals that have been linked with heart disease. Oxidative stress and increased adrenaline can contribute to a person’s risk of heart disease.

E-cigarettes contain no tobacco, but they deliver a heated mixture of nicotine and flavorings to a user’s mouth and lungs. There is some evidence that the nicotine in e-cigarettes can narrow blood vessels in the heart.

Sleep for at least 7 hours
Too little sleep may take a toll on your heart — especially if you’re already at risk for heart disease. People who got less than 6 hours of sleep a night and have a condition known as metabolic syndrome are about twice as likely to die of heart disease.
Metabolic syndrome is a group of symptoms ― including high BMI and elevated cholesterol ― that raise a person’s risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
Getting enough sleep can be an important part of a heart-healthy lifestyle: The risk of death was lower in people with metabolic syndrome who got more than 6 hours of shut-eye each night.
Men and women with at least three of the following five risk factors — high blood pressure, elevated triglycerides, low levels of HDL cholesterol, a high body mass index (BMI) and high blood sugar — meet the criteria for metabolic syndrome.

Next week: Why do we have a liver?

• Dr Fasol is an academic surgeon from the University of Vienna in Austria, and has worked, built and managed hospitals in Europe, Africa and China operating and treating thousands of patients.